marzocchi fork ninja

Today I lowered my Sinister's fork. My 2003 Marzocchi Dirt Jumper 1 started life at 130 millimeters of travel and was lowered to 110 when i got my dna. Since then I've wanted to drop it to 80 mm to make my head angle steeper and lower the front end of my bike. Tearing into suspension components can be intimidating because there is a lot a crap to screw up. Fortunately I know my shit.

You need a couple things before you start a project like this; music and tools. For music I would recommend Fu Manchu and for tools you'll need some lock ring pliers, a modified 12mm socket and a 20mm socket.

I won't get into the techno-nerd brutality that is disassembling and reassembling these forks but basically you're draining the oil, removing the lower assembly, modifying the damper assemblies with different spacers and putting it all back together with different spacers in the upper assembly. It can be a pain in the ass but when you're done you will have a kickass fork.

At 110 mm:


Tools and top caps:


One of the damper assemblies before spacer swap:


One of the plastic spacers was annihilated along with both of the top out springs. Fortunately (and amazingly) bike world had new top out springs in stock.



I replaced the springs and installed new metal spacers on the dampers assemblies.


Then I put it all back together.

80mm: